PODCAST

Doom Debates

Liron Shapira

It"s time to talk about the end of the world! lironshapira.substack.com

technology

All Episodes

200:46

God vs. AI Doom: Debate with Bentham's Bulldog

Doom Debates ·

2025/01/15

Matthew Adelstein, better known as Bentham’s Bulldog on Substack, is a philosophy major at the University of Michigan and an up & coming public intellectual.He’s a rare combination: Effective Altruist, Bayesian, non-reductionist, theist.Our debate covers reductionism, evidence for god, the implications of a fine-tuned universe, moral realism, and AI doom.00:00 Introduction02:56 Matthew’s Research11:29 Animal Welfare16:04 Reductionism vs. Non-Reductionism Debate39:53 The Decline of God in Modern

157:10

Debate with a former OpenAI Research Team Lead —...

Doom Debates ·

2025/01/06

Prof. Kenneth Stanley is a former Research Science Manager at OpenAI leading the Open-Endedness Team in 2020-2022. Before that, he was a Professor of Computer Ccience at the University of Central Florida and the head of Core AI Research at Uber. He coauthored Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective, which argues that as soon as you create an objective, then you ruin your ability to reach it.In this episode, I debate Ken’s claim that superintelligent AI *won’t* be guided by goals,

63:30

OpenAI o3 and Claude Alignment Faking — How doomed...

Doom Debates ·

2024/12/30

OpenAI just announced o3 and smashed a bunch of benchmarks (ARC-AGI, SWE-bench, FrontierMath)!A new Anthropic and Redwood Research paper says Claude is resisting its developers’ attempts to retrain its values!What’s the upshot — what does it all mean for P(doom)?00:00 Introduction01:45 o3’s architecture and benchmarks06:08 “Scaling is hitting a wall” 🤡13:41 How many new architectural insights before AGI?20:28 Negative update for interpretability31:30 Intellidynamics — ***KEY CONCEPT***33:20 Nuclear

83:36

AI Will Kill Us All — Liron Shapira on The Flares

Doom Debates ·

2024/12/27

This week Liron was interview by Gaëtan Selle on @the-flares about AI doom.Cross-posted from their channel with permission.Original source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Qi-54I9Zw0:00:02 Guest Introduction 0:01:41 Effective Altruism and Transhumanism 0:05:38 Bayesian Epistemology and Extinction Probability 0:09:26 Defining Intelligence and Its Dangers 0:12:33 The Key Argument for AI Apocalypse 0:18:51 AI’s Internal Alignment 0:24:56 What Will AI's Real Goal Be? 0:26:50 The Train of

104:46

Roon vs. Liron: AI Doom Debate

Doom Debates ·

2024/12/18

Roon is a member of the technical staff at OpenAI. He’s a highly respected voice on tech Twitter, despite being a pseudonymous cartoon avatar account. In late 2021, he invented the terms “shape rotator” and “wordcel” to refer to roughly visual/spatial/mathematical intelligence vs. verbal intelligence. He is simultaneously a serious thinker, a builder, and a shitposter. I'm excited to learn more about Roon, his background, his life, and of course, his views about AI and existential risk.00:00

112:58

Scott Aaronson Makes Me Think OpenAI's “Safety” Is...

Doom Debates ·

2024/12/11

Today I’m reacting to the recent Scott Aaronson interview on the Win-Win podcast with Liv Boeree and Igor Kurganov.Prof. Aaronson is the Director of the Quantum Information Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s best known for his research advancing the frontier of complexity theory, especially quantum complexity theory, and making complex insights from his field accessible to a wider readership via his blog.Scott is one of my biggest intellectual influences. His famous Who Can Name The

179:34

Liron Reacts to Subbarao Kambhampati on Machine...

Doom Debates ·

2024/11/28

Today I’m reacting to a July 2024 interview that Prof. Subbarao Kambhampati did on Machine Learning Street Talk.Rao is a Professor of Computer Science at Arizona State University, and one of the foremost voices making the claim that while LLMs can generate creative ideas, they can’t truly reason.The episode covers a range of topics including planning, creativity, the limits of LLMs, and why Rao thinks LLMs are essentially advanced N-gram models.00:00 Introduction02:54 Essentially N-Gram Models?10:31

64:11

This Yudkowskian Has A 99.999% P(Doom)

Doom Debates ·

2024/11/27

In this episode of Doom Debates, I discuss AI existential risks with my pseudonymous guest Nethys.Nethy shares his journey into AI risk awareness, influenced heavily by LessWrong and Eliezer Yudkowsky. We explore the vulnerability of society to emerging technologies, the challenges of AI alignment, and why he believes our current approaches are insufficient, ultimately resulting in 99.999% P(Doom).00:00 Nethys Introduction04:47 The Vulnerable World Hypothesis10:01 What’s Your P(Doom)™14:04 Nethys’s

117:45

Cosmology, AI Doom, and the Future of Humanity with...

Doom Debates ·

2024/11/21

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today, co-host of Astronomy Cast, a popular YouTuber about all things space, and guess what… he has a high P(doom)! That’s why he’s joining me on Doom Debates for a very special AI + space crossover episode.00:00 Fraser Cain’s Background and Interests5:03 What’s Your P(Doom)™07:05 Our Vulnerable World15:11 Don’t Look Up22:18 Cosmology and the Search for Alien Life31:33 Stars = Terrorists39:03 The Great Filter and the Fermi Paradox55:12 Grabby Aliens

141:22

AI Doom Debate: Vaden Masrani & Ben Chugg vs. Liron...

Doom Debates ·

2024/11/19

Vaden Masrani and Ben Chugg, hosts of the Increments Podcast, are back for a Part II! This time we’re going straight to debating my favorite topic, AI doom.00:00 Introduction02:23 High-Level AI Doom Argument17:06 How Powerful Could Intelligence Be?22:34 “Knowledge Creation”48:33 “Creativity”54:57 Stand-Up Comedy as a Test for AI01:12:53 Vaden & Ben’s Goalposts01:15:00 How to Change Liron’s Mind01:20:02 LLMs are Stochastic Parrots?01:34:06 Tools vs. Agents01:39:51 Instrumental Convergence and AI

157:22

Andrew Critch vs. Liron Shapira: Will AI Extinction...

Doom Debates ·

2024/11/16

Dr. Andrew Critch is the co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality, a former Research Fellow at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), a Research Scientist at the UC Berkeley Center for Human Compatible AI, and the co-founder of a new startup called Healthcare Agents.Dr. Critch’s P(Doom) is a whopping 85%! But his most likely doom scenario isn’t what you might expect. He thinks humanity will successfully avoid a self-improving superintelligent doom scenario, only to still go

66:47

AI Twitter Beefs #2: Yann LeCun, David Deutsch, Tyler...

Doom Debates ·

2024/11/13

It’s time for AI Twitter Beefs #2:00:42 Jack Clark (Anthropic) vs. Holly Elmore (PauseAI US)11:02 Beff Jezos vs. Eliezer Yudkowsky, Carl Feynman18:10 Geoffrey Hinton vs. OpenAI & Meta25:14 Samuel Hammond vs. Liron30:26 Yann LeCun vs. Eliezer Yudkowsky37:13 Roon vs. Eliezer Yudkowsky41:37 Tyler Cowen vs. AI Doomers52:54 David Deutsch vs. LironTwitter people referenced:* Jack Clark: https://x.com/jackclarkSF* Holly Elmore: https://x.com/ilex_ulmus* PauseAI US: https://x.com/PauseAIUS* Geoffrey Hinton:

170:58

Is P(Doom) Meaningful? Epistemology Debate with Vaden...

Doom Debates ·

2024/11/08

Vaden Masrani and Ben Chugg, hosts of the Increments Podcast, are joining me to debate Bayesian vs. Popperian epistemology.I’m on the Bayesian side, heavily influenced by the writings of Eliezer Yudkowsky. Vaden and Ben are on the Popperian side, heavily influenced by David Deutsch and the writings of Popper himself.We dive into the theoretical underpinnings of Bayesian reasoning and Solomonoff induction, contrasting them with the Popperian perspective, and explore real-world applications such as

15:52

15-Minute Intro to AI Doom

Doom Debates ·

2024/11/04

Our top researchers and industry leaders have been warning us that superintelligent AI may cause human extinction in the next decade.If you haven't been following all the urgent warnings, I'm here to bring you up to speed.* Human-level AI is coming soon* It’s an existential threat to humanity* The situation calls for urgent actionListen to this 15-minute intro to get the lay of the land.Then follow these links to learn more and see how you can help:* The CompendiumA longer written introduction to AI

91:58

Lee Cronin vs. Liron Shapira: AI Doom Debate

Doom Debates ·

2024/10/30

Prof. Lee Cronin is the Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. His research aims to understand how life might arise from non-living matter. In 2017, he invented “Assembly Theory” as a way to measure the complexity of molecules and gain insight into the earliest evolution of life.Today we’re debating Lee's claims about the limits of AI capabilities, and my claims about the risk of extinction from superintelligent AGI.00:00 Introduction04:20 Assembly Theory05:10 Causation and

28:55

Ben Horowitz says nuclear proliferation is GOOD? I...

Doom Debates ·

2024/10/25

Ben Horowitz, cofounder and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), says nuclear proliferation is good.I was shocked because I thought we all agreed nuclear proliferation is VERY BAD.If Ben and a16z can’t appreciate the existential risks of nuclear weapons proliferation, why would anyone ever take them seriously on the topic of AI regulation?00:00 Introduction00:49 Ben Horowitz on Nuclear Proliferation02:12 Ben Horowitz on Open Source AI05:31 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaties10:25 Escalation

72:42

“AI Snake Oil” Prof. Arvind Narayanan Can't See AGI...

Doom Debates ·

2024/10/13

Today I’m reacting to Arvind Narayanan’s interview with Robert Wright on the Nonzero podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoB_pikM3NYDr. Narayanan is a Professor of Computer Science and the Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton. He just published a new book called AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference.Arvind claims AI is “normal technology like the internet”, and never sees fit to bring up the impact or

131:32

Dr. Keith Duggar has a high P(doom)?! Debate with...

Doom Debates ·

2024/10/08

Dr. Keith Duggar from Machine Learning Street Talk was the subject of my recent reaction episode about whether GPT o1 can reason. But instead of ignoring or blocking me, Keith was brave enough to come into the lion’s den and debate his points with me… and his P(doom) might shock you!First we debate whether Keith’s distinction between Turing Machines and Discrete Finite Automata is useful for understanding limitations of current LLMs. Then I take Keith on a tour of alignment, orthogonality,

45:38

Getting Arrested for Barricading OpenAI's Office to...

Doom Debates ·

2024/10/04

Sam Kirchner and Remmelt Ellen, leaders of the Stop AI movement, think the only way to effectively protest superintelligent AI development is with civil disobedience.Not only are they staging regular protests in front of AI labs, they’re barricading the entrances and blocking traffic, then allowing themselves to be repeatedly arrested.Is civil disobedience the right strategy to pause or stop AI?00:00 Introducing Stop AI00:38 Arrested at OpenAI Headquarters01:14 Stop AI’s Funding01:26 Blocking

69:43

Q&A #1 Part 2: Stock Picking, Creativity, Types of...

Doom Debates ·

2024/10/02

This episode is a continuation of Q&A #1 Part 1 where I answer YOUR questions!00:00 Introduction01:20 Planning for a good outcome?03:10 Stock Picking Advice08:42 Dumbing It Down for Dr. Phil11:52 Will AI Shorten Attention Spans?12:55 Historical Nerd Life14:41 YouTube vs. Podcast Metrics16:30 Video Games26:04 Creativity30:29 Does AI Doom Explain the Fermi Paradox?36:37 Grabby Aliens37:29 Types of AI Doomers44:44 Early Warning Signs of AI Doom48:34 Do Current AIs Have General Intelligence?51:07 How

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